Tripoli history

Sightseeing in Tripoli is full of surprises. Known in Roman times as Oea, the city was part of the fertile and wealthy Tripolitania - the province of three cities, the others being Sabratha and Leptis Magna. After the seventh-century Arab conquest, the city became known as Tripoli, or Tarabulus in Arabic.

The Arabs, their successors the Ottomans and, more recently, the Italians all opted to build gleaming white architecture, which has earned the city its nickname, the 'White Bride of the Mediterranean'.